


Tethered

by ritchieaa



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Attempt at Humor, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Humor, M/M, Peeping, except Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 03:24:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9104527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ritchieaa/pseuds/ritchieaa
Summary: Insufferable was the word that always came to mind. Followed by a very dramatic groan and a giant roll of his eyes. But nobody ever got the chance to witness it these days. No, Stiles' dramatics were saved for himself. It may or may not be largely due to the fact that nobody could see, hear, or feel him. Life sure is funny being a ghost.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this chapter up a while ago and decided to post it, maybe even possibly continue it...? Who knows? Certainly not me.

Being dead absolutely sucked. There was nobody to talk to, nothing you could eat. Sure, you could try to eat out of some dude's bowl, but you'll only end up sticking your plasmic fingers through the popcorn.

It seriously irked Stiles to no end that he could flip the channel on the television to something he actually wanted to watch and only have some lady with five cats change it right back to QVC with a puzzled look on her face.

Ten years. Ten years he's had to endure that kind of stuff. His home wasn't his and never would be, but it definitely didn't seem like he was going anywhere anytime soon. Making the best of it, however, just meant talking to himself all of the time while messing with whichever poor soul was living in his old apartment.

Some would shrug it off using logic, which was easy to do considering Stiles only knew the basics for haunting people. They really should make a guidebook for that, though. Other people, however, would freak out enough to leave as soon as they could messily stuff their clothes into a duffel bag and vamoose. Those were his favorite people.

They were his favorite because it meant that he'd have a few weeks to himself. A few weeks where he could just pretend that everything was the same as it was ten years ago, that this was all just some long nightmare that never seemed to have an end. That he was still living with his best friend and they both had crappy jobs that paid just enough to live together in a one-bedroom apartment. It was the best time of his life.

Until it just wasn't.

Because his life? It didn't exist anymore. Not technically, anyway. Sure, Stiles wasn't living anymore, but he did exist. Or that's the conclusion he's come to considering he was either a ghost or maybe somewhere along the way, something cracked and he was in a mental ward all these years just thinking he was a ghost. Kind of like that trippy episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Stiles really loved that aired two years before he died. At least he got to finish the series before he had to go and lose his life in some stupid car accident.

Oh, right—the car accident. Stiles didn't like to think about it at all, sure that the memory of it would give him panic attacks if panic attacks were still possible. But because of one stupid deer, he swerved, lost control of his jeep, and drove into a river. Drowning hadn't really been a fear of his, but it sure as hell was now that he's been through it. Although, he had to wonder to himself if he could actually breathe underwater.

Well, not breathe-breathe, obviously. But he wondered if he could stay in the water for as long as he wanted.

Of course, he could never find out since he seemed to be stuck in this godforsaken apartment for the past decade. He couldn't walk out the front door without being magically transported right back to his and Scott's old bedroom in the blink of an eye.

Scott. His best friend. God, how much it sucked for Stiles to watch the best guy he'd ever known grieve over him. Stiles wanted nothing more than to let Scott know he was okay, send him some sort of message. But back then, he had no idea how to even knock on a door, let alone leave notes on a steamy bathroom mirror. That didn't mean he didn't try, though.

It was too late once he figured out how to work things, however. After months of living alone, isolating himself from his girlfriend and his family, Scott finally moved out and back in with his mother.

Stiles wished he could see his own mother. He thought that, now that he was just as not-alive as Claudia was, he'd be able to see her. But she was nowhere. Nobody was anywhere. Ghosts, that is. As far as Stiles was aware of, he was the only ghost in the world. At least it definitely felt that way considering the lack of familial relatives visiting him from the beyond the grave with a big welcome party and some plasma pizza.

What Stiles wouldn't do for some plasma pizza right now...

However, he doesn't have much time to dwell on what kind of pun-worthy toppings would be on said pizza because it seems like somebody was starting to move their furniture into the apartment. The same girl who came in about a week ago asking blatant questions about rent control and if there were nosy neighbors living in the complex because her brother hated neighbors that were nosy was now carrying in a dark green table lamp in her grip, setting it down near a socket and turning it on in order to illuminate the room from the darkness that the end of the day blanketed the city in.

“See? I told you I could find you a damn apartment. I'm not incompetent, Derek.” the woman told the person that was trailing in behind her with a couple of large boxes that were marked as “Kitchen” with neat handwriting that Stiles could have sworn wouldn't belong to either of them. It seemed too polished for somebody as brash as the girl. And the reason behind the man? Well, Stiles was sure that this frat guy couldn't even spell “kitchen” without thinking it started with a C. So the most he had expected out of this Derek dude was to have spelled it “citchen” and then crossed it out for the proper spelling.

And judging by the way that Derek had just grunted and rolled his eyes at his sister instead of using his words, Stiles figured the guy would be lucky enough to know how to read Dr. Seuss books.

The 'youngest' of the three walked along the inside of the spacious living room, eyebrows knit together as he analyzed his new quote-unquote roommate. “Huh.” he murmured under his breath, gaze still settled on the muscled figure. “Five bucks says you're a player who wants to live the bachelor life for as long as he can. Until you accidentally knock a girl up who wants to keep the baby and live an unhappy marriage with some 9-to-5 job you're bound to hate because it's too stuffy and they don't have keg breaks...” Imagination really was the only thing Stiles had for entertainment these days.

“It's cold.” And Derek was monosyllabic, it seemed. “Is there a draft in the apartment, Cora?” he questioned as he walked over to the thermostat in order to turn the heater on, not really seeming to care right now that they'd still be in and out moving in his furniture. Unless a lamp and kitchen supplies were all this guy owned.

Cora simply scoffed slightly and moved toward the door. “Find one more imaginary thing wrong with it and I'll give Peter your new address...” the young woman threatened, back turned to her older brother as she closed the front door as to let the heat linger inside for a bit so it'd be one less thing for Derek to complain about.

Stiles walked over to the kitchen counter, hopping up and settling down with an amused grin spreading across his lips as he watched Derek scan the apartment for anything else that might be wrong with it.

Messing with him was going to be so much fun.

 

And it didn't even take long. Once Derek was settled in, Stiles started out slow. Moving the remote from one side of the room to the other when the new tenant wasn't looking, leaving random pieces of paper lying around the apartment, dumping the pot of coffee down the kitchen drain when Derek took his morning shower. Little things to make Derek think he was going crazy. At the very least, make it feel like he was becoming incredibly forgetful.

Which was fine for now because it meant Stiles could bare witness to the look of utter confusion that Derek would react with at the start of the events transitioning into complete aggravation and frustration once it happened enough times. Hell, he even replaced his coffee pot two times within the three weeks he'd been living there.

Three weeks was a long time, though. Which was exactly why it had Stiles wonder what the hell this guy even did for a living. Whenever he left, Derek sure wasn't gone long enough for it to have been assumed to have been to his job. And Derek didn't really spend a bunch of time on the computer, so it wasn't like he was working from home. At least, Stiles figured since he was still pretty sure computers these days couldn't do a day's work in fifteen minute intervals of reading news on the internet.

The internet got weird, though, as proved by the man who lived here four years ago and did nothing but watch porn with Japanese cartoons all of the time. Stiles had no idea tentacles were some sort of fetish, but he did wonder if there were sex shops nowadays that sold animated tentacle dildos. Although, the thought of it made his ghost spine ghost-shiver. Which also seemed to effect the temperature in the room just a bit since Derek scrunched just that much more into his body whenever Stiles walked into the room.

That never happened with any of the previous people living here, though. Some could tell when he was around because they could sense him, but the rooms certainly never got physically colder before. Maybe he was getting too good at being a ghost and this was just the next stage.

But if Stiles was a ghost, that definitely meant Derek was loner. Because he was pretty sure he was Derek's best friend at this point despite the fact that they'd never interacted with one another before. He'd only ever get calls from his sister or snide texts from that dude named Peter that Derek got annoyed with every time he'd read whatever he sent. Stiles wondered why he didn't just block the number.

Stiles was actually surprised by how not douchey this guy seemed to turn out to be. He was sure there would have been a keg party by now, but the most exciting thing that had even happened that wasn't Stiles' doing was Derek meeting a neighbor and having small talk with him outside of the apartment. But even then, the door was too thick to get much more than garbled speech. And yet, somehow still the most exciting thing to have happened.

Sure, there was the constant athleticism taking place in the form of Derek doing pull-ups in the doorway of his bedroom, but that could only keep a ghost-dude entertained for so long before he'd wish Derek had the sudden urge to do naked pull-ups.

Because despite the fact that nobody knew he was around, Stiles gave Derek privacy. He gave all of the people that lived here their privacy. Except for porn guy. But that was mostly because he would jerk off enough times a day in every damn room in this apartment that it became a little competition in Stiles' own head as to how long he'd last during an individual session. The tentacles usually indicated that it'd end quicker than normal.

Stiles sighed internally as Derek's feet padded their way to the bathroom, the smaller male of the two turning in one of the kitchen stools as to face away since Derek seemed to walk naked from the bedroom to the shower every morning, as indicated by the bare ass that was almost perfect enough for Stiles to throw decency out the window and just gawk at Derek's naked form for an entire hour. Almost. It wasn't like he'd never seen Derek's ass before. The guy slept naked and on his stomach—it was practically his trademark at this point.

Stiles would be lying, though, if he said he wasn't tempted to let a lingering peek slip through his willpower. Derek was the most attractive guy that had ever lived here; was it really so wrong for him to just wanna get a great mental image of the goods to save for another decade until some other frat guy-looking hermit moved in?

And before he could stop himself, he was peeking around the corner of the bathroom door. It was wide open, just FYI. That's practically an invitation for perverted ghost teenage boys to look at you naked. Stiles swallowed heavily as he felt himself warm up slightly for the first time in years. Can ghosts get aroused? Because that's definitely what was happening right now. And all Derek was doing was showering, facing away from the door. Stiles had seen this butt almost two dozen times now; what the hell made it so different this time around?

With that thought, Derek slowly began to turn around, giving Stiles enough of a look to know he was definitely packing as much as he thought he was. He'd have to pay himself that twenty dollars he bet later today. “Good lord...” he muttered, shamelessly keeping his eyes glued to the man's lower regions.

“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?!” the older male exclaimed loudly, voice booming against the acoustics of the bathroom. Stiles' eyes blew wide, mouth hanging open and ready to catch flies.

“Uh...” What?! “Umm...” What?! “Uh...uh...” What?!

As Derek quickly grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist, seething to no end and looking absolutely ready to pummel Stiles into the ground hard enough that he'd crash down four stories, Stiles reflexively maneuvered back around the corner of the bathroom, rushing over to the middle of the living room.

Oh, God—what was he going to do? How the hell was he going to explain to this guy that he was some peeping ghost who's been living in his apartment since 2004? How does one even go about saying something like that without sounding like he took too many hits off of a cheap blunt?

The other exited through the steamed up doorway, anger evident in every muscle of his body, gaze piercing and deadly as they searched for the teenager who had broken into his apartment.

But he was nowhere to be seen.

Derek rushed over to the door, having to physically make sure that it was locked. And it was. With a deadbolt, even.

“What, making sure nobody can come in and witness you murder me?” Stiles exclaimed loudly, hands moving to anxiously rub at his mouth as he continued to gape at the fuming male. “How are you gonna hide the body, huh? How...how are...wait, there is no body. How...how are you gonna hide the...the soul...?” If the look on Stiles face had the ability to speak, it would be expressing just how confused murdering a ghost would even work.

He didn't seem to have to, though, because Derek walked right past him once again and into the bedroom. Shaking his head a bit, Stiles followed soundlessly and found the guy checking underneath the bed and in the closet, practically tearing the room to shreds in order to find the pervert he'd caught.

“Oh, thank God...” the shorter of the two sighed out in exasperation, leaning up against the door frame. “I...am never looking at another guy naked ever again. Jesus Christ...”

Derek continued a rampant search throughout his home, losing less and less momentum with each unsuccessful second.

“Ha! You won't find me! You won't find any evidence that I even exist or that I was totally watching you shower...” Stiles' elated face quickly dropped into a frown accompanied by his brow furrowed in recognition of his actions. “Ten years. Ten years before I start to lose respect for myself. Good to know...” Sluggishly moving over to the kitchen counter, gaze aimed shamefully down at the linoleum floor, he sighed before speaking once again. “Dude, I'm sorry. That was...super-duper gross of me. Just...been a while since I've seen a guy naked in person. Which is...still as equally gross of an excuse, really.”

He was failing terribly at apologizing. Of course, the last time he apologized was about the last time he saw a naked guy, too. No correlation.

“I wish you could hear me. Hell, I wish anybody could hear me. Speak to me. Be around me. Hu—oh, God. Hugs, bro! You have no idea how much you miss hugs until there's nobody that can give them to you.” Truth was, he didn't even remember what it felt like. What touching anybody felt like. Stiles knew there was a certain warmth that came with physical contact between two people, but he could barely remember what warmth even feels like. Everything was just numb on the other side. Nothing he interacted with had a temperature. Hot, cold, lukewarm, chilly—it was all the same. “Uh...again, not...not an excuse. It's more--” Stiles stopped mid-sentence, pausing before sighing heavily and shaking his head. “Why am I even trying. Not like you're ever going to respond back. Even if you did, it'd probably be something like 'Aaaah, ghost!' or 'Stop looking at me naked!'. Which...yeah, okay, both very plausible reactions to...listening to a ghost-guy rant about being gross and looking at your peen in the shower...”

Derek had lost most of his seething attitude now, grabbing for his laptop and starting it up. Quizzically, Stiles hopped off of the counter and made his way to stand behind the other, leaning over the back of the couch as Derek began to type something into the search engine—Stiles Stilinski.

“How...the hell do you know who I am, Derek...?” Stiles murmured to himself, eyes trained on the back of the other's head before they joined Derek's own gaze at looking at the different sites that came up. The first two were just his Friendster and MySpace accounts, but following were a few articles about him, about how he died. “Fuck...”


End file.
